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This post originally ran in 2010, after Yahoo posted eight reasons why they thought coupons were a bad idea. These myths about coupons continue to circulate today, so we thought we'd run this again and do a little mythbusting!--------------------------------------------------- Myth-busting:  Why Yahoo is All Wrong There are so many false coupon and money-saving "truths" out there. You know, like "generic is always cheaper than name brand with a coupon." For a long time I believed all of them and thought coupons were a waste of time. Now? Now I absolutely love busting those myths that keep people from saving! The post last week on Yahoo Finance about 8 Reasons You Shouldn't Use Coupons had me virtually apoplectic - it is clearly written from a biased, outdated point-of-view. So, I'm going to go through their eight points and give you the truth! 1. You have to buy a newspaper - FALSE. You don't ever have to buy a newspaper if you don't want to! Yahoo goes into detail of what a hassle it is to buy a paper, and how you've lost money once you do. So not true. I don't get the paper any more. I order my coupons from my favorite clipping services. They get the paper, clip and sort the coupons for me. And I only buy the ones I want. I don't get the ones for pickles or Gold Bond cream, because I won't use them.  But if there's a great coupon on Kraft cheese, then yes, I'll buy twenty of those.  Two dollars later I am the proud owner of $20 in savings.  No hassle, no papers to buy, no clipping to do.  The other option is to skip insert coupons altogether!  The number of printable coupons is rising daily.  In fact, of the matchups I do, almost half the items I post have a printable coupon that will work with them.  I get, on average, about 40-50 printable coupons emailed to me a day!  Add in digital coupons that go on your shopper's card or cellphone and there is a whole wide world of coupons that don't involve the newspaper in any way. 2. Clipping coupons takes time - TRUE and FALSE. First, see #1 for how to save time with a clipping service. But yes, physically clipping coupons yourself does take time. However, there is no need to cut out every single coupon. Cut out only the ones you think you will use, or set the insert aside. If you've noticed, when we do matchups for store sales we tell you the insert and date a coupon came out so you can go back and pull it out - clipping it only when you are ready to use it. As for the hours spent? When I was getting six papers a week and cutting out coupons myself, I might have spent one to two hours a week cutting and organizing, plus another three to five hours a week reading up on sales. Since I save $600 a month at the store with coupons, that equals anywhere from $21 to $37 an hour return on the time invested. That's nothing to sneeze at! 3. Getting a newspaper invites lots of additional advertising into your home - FALSE. Really? This is their argument? A newspaper brings a lot of advertising into your home? Since the average American sees more than 15,000 advertisements a day via TV, radio, billboards, websites, logos on clothing and many other places, somehow I doubt the few hundred ads that come in your paper are going to sway you that much. And if you use a coupon-clipping service, you won't get those extra advertisements anyway! 4. Many of the coupons will be for things you neither need nor want - TRUE.Absolutely true! In fact, I find that I will only use about five to 10 percent of the coupons out there. However, that doesn't mean you need to go out and buy those things anyway! I mean, I'm not going to use the Fixodent coupons, since I don't have dentures. I've never been tempted in the slightest by those, or the ones for creams for athlete's foot. Or any of the fiber supplements, or for baby products now that my kids are all past that stage. In all of my classes I teach people to make a menu plan and a master list of foods and products you use. That way you won't be running here, there and everywhere for items you'll never use. Also, because I use a coupon-clipping service, I don't get all of those coupons I will never use. I get only the ones I want. Not using coupons because there are lots of them for products I don't want is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 5. Coupons can tempt you to spend your grocery dollars on things you shouldn't - FALSE. This is one of the oldest coupon myths in the book - that coupons are only for unhealthy things. Give us some credit here - seeing a coupon for Snickers doesn't make me more likely to buy them. I have debunked this myth over and over and over again. This month alone I've gotten coupons for soymilk, apples, cheese, meat, organic chips, organic cereals and products, salads and other healthy items. Not to mention the coupons for toothpaste, shampoo, medicines, cleaning products, napkins and other household supplies that everyone buys! Yahoo then adds: "Plus, if you have a monthly grocery budget that you stick to no matter what, coupons will only get you more food or different food - they won't truly save you any money." False, false, false!! It is perfectly clear to me that the person writing this has never used coupons the way we do here at cincysavers.com. They obviously have a very derogatory view of them as well. Why would you be spending the same amount when you suddenly find you can get toothpaste for free, razors for free, name-brand cereal for less than $1 a box, cheese for only $.38 a package and even save money on meat and produce? Also, what exactly is wrong with getting more food for the same amount of money? What kind of yahoo writes this kind of financial drivel?! (Pun totally intended.) The fact that a financial advisor thinks that getting more for the money you're spending is a bad idea tells me they are the kind of people I never want to be taking financial advice from. Ever. (I clearly should stop reading this nonsense now before I have a stroke.) 6. The same coupons tend to be offered over and over again - TRUE. And we like it that way! It is called the "sales cycle" and it allows us to plan ahead for certain sales and only buy when items are on sale. This is a good thing! I know that I can get toothpaste free at least once every three months, so I don't buy more than three to four boxes at a time. Same with cereal, or shampoo, or fruit. They all have sales cycles - the key is to learn the cycles and stock up during them. Seriously, do financial writers whine that Black Friday sales happen over and over again every year? Are you that easily bored to complain that the same coupons come out every three months? This next one is so laughable I have to put the whole thing in. 7. You might become a slave to coupons. "It can be very difficult to buy something without a coupon once you get used to using coupons. Knowing that you can get ice cream for $2.50 might make it difficult for you to spend $4 on it even though many times, it would be worth it to spend the extra $1.50 rather than pine for ice cream and cast longing glances at your freezer every night for three weeks until your next coupon arrives. You might also find yourself making more trips to the grocery store in order to purchase things only when you have coupons for them." FALSE. Well, I'll admit that it is difficult to buy something without a coupon now. Painful, even. When you learn how far a dollar can stretch it becomes much harder to ever pay full price. But I'm not a slave. Really, a slave? Since it feels a little like I hit the lottery every single time I go to the store, I enjoy using coupons. Not regret using them. It means that I know that I can spend less on the same product. So why would I ever pay $3.50 for a box of cereal that I can regularly get for under $1? I also find it funny that after her rant on buying foods that aren't healthy for you because you use coupons, her next example is about going ahead and buying ice cream at full price rather than waiting for the coupon and "pining" for it. Sorry, I don't pine. I stock up while it is on sale so I never have to pine. By the way, if you're still paying $2.50 for ice cream after coupons - you clearly aren't doing it right. As for making more trips to the store? No way. I shop way less than I did before when I shopped weekly. One of my big tips I share frequently is that your time is as valuable as your money - so never hit more than two stores in a week. In fact, I rarely go into a store more than one or two times a month - and that is only for things like milk, produce and some medicines. The rest of the time I'll do a Big Shop when there is a big sale, like the Mega Sale, only about every six weeks or so. I'll bet that's a lot less than she shops! 8. Shopping takes longer - TRUE and FALSE. I remember before I learned the secrets of coupons that when I did use them shopping seemed to take hours more with very little savings. But now that I know all the secrets, shopping goes so much faster! What is the difference? I learned to shop ahead. I no longer go to the store with a handful of coupons, hoping that what I need for the week will match - I flipped the shopping system on its head. Now I go to the store and only buy what is on sale. And I buy multiples of the things I regularly use, so that when I run out, I go to my stockpile at home instead of going to the store. Because my list includes only items on sale, I'm getting fewer items, and I'm not wandering aisle by aisle, filling my cart. Now, the true part of this statement is that checkout does take longer. When you have a pile of coupons, it takes extra time for the cashier to scan them. Most of the time it is relatively quick - but if I'm at a Super Doubles or Mega Sale, it takes longer. I warn people not to get behind me. ;) Still, if you look at my answer to #7, you'll see that I'm not going to the store all that often. As I read the article on Yahoo and researched the author who wrote it, I learned that she is a freelance writer. I read other articles by her on different sites that advocate using coupons. That's right - in a couple of articles last year she writes about how coupons can save you money, all based on specific websites' information. There are a lot of "money-saving" and financial advice websites out there, but many of the articles on them are written by freelancers - freelancers who are given a point of view by their employer before they even start writing. The article is written to prove that point of view. Getting your coupon and money-saving tips from someone who doesn't actually practice coupon and money-saving techniques just doesn't make sense. If you've been around cincysavers.com for long, you know that isn't how I do things. I definitely practice what I preach. Heck, half of you have met me at a local store, stuffing my cart with the best deals and handing out extra coupons to shoppers I meet - or giving mini-coupon classes right there in the grocery aisle!

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